Singing Lessons and singing, lying on the floor and hums. Feeling the vibration of the voice which is self calming. It is preferable to lye on floor boards to feel the vibration of humming through the floorboards and associated effects felt through body.

Martial Art – a routinized sequence of self defence movements the kid can resort to when feeling overstimulated.

Dancing

Movement based activity

Massage the kiddo to remind kiddo that he has a sensory body and tends to distract him from his distress.

Books

Sunglasses – to shade eyes

Put the child in room and tone down light stimulation.

Jumping and rolling around in heaped up pillows or old mattress on the floor.

Go walking/running.

Ball pit

Trampoline

Cooking

Piano or guitar, instrument where kiddo is moving his hands or fingers

knitting

White board on wall with morning routine and afternoon routine on it to refer to, it is so helpful for me to track morning procedures and be on time.

Laminated routine sequences instructions are written down, where you can just show your kiddo instead of you having to repeat things one hundred times.

Structured time on the computer, if they insist that they like the computer then use it as a reward based system. You do a household task and you can have 20 mins computer time. Great technique for helping out with housework. That’s all I can think of at moment.

Set tasks such as mowing the lawn, wash dishes, cleaning, washing cars is a way to earn points or money towards something he wants to purchase. This is a great way to encourage writing practice.

Butcher’s paper roll, use it as a table cloth. While you are eating at table you can leave some pens lying around on table. While you are eating or talking or just sitting you can use your hands and draw/write or play a game like O’s and X’s on the table cloth. It’s fun and interactive also exercising manual dexterity of hands and encouraging writing/maths.

Playing Rock/Paper/Scissors with hands

Search and find games

Get a wall full length body mirror so the kiddo’s can self check their own skin and cleaniness when going to loo. As the visual information input will challenge the other sensory feelings that he may have. Helps to instill a sense of self confidence in child and independance. Very helpful strategy for a stressed out parent.

Get a paper bag from Coles (easy to leave some at school or pop some in schoolbag) which are there for him to use as a calming devices, as my son can get so distressed in a meltdown that he feels he is blowing out too much air, blow into a paperbag to help stabilize breathing. Pulling one out at times when a meltdown is triggered can also be a visual emotional soother which can help as well. (100 paper bags at Coles is a few dollers). Also can be turned into a fun thing by blowing them up and popping them/drawing faces on them.

Swim

Pop a David Attenborough nature video on which are very good for getting kids to sleep, wonderful soothing nature music

My Kiddo no. 1 did not toilet train early or before turning 3 years old. Yet Kiddo no. 2 toilet trained at 1.5 years.While he eliminated in the loo he needed reassurrance that everything was alright and he was following the correct way to do it. If you are a parent or caregiver and hearing “Mum, is all the Poo off my bum?”, “Mum, wipe my bum!” and you know they can do it themselves, then in our cicumstance I felt this was a Sensory Processing Disorder and part of Autism Spectrum. It was a worry for me because I was scared he was asking and showing people at school or in public and I had to find a way to fix this. I did it by using a wall mirror in the bathroom so my child could self check. Hopefully this would instill in him a sense of self confidence.

It took me, as a parent, a while to realize that a mirror in the bathroom may do the trick. The bathroom idea was not an idea that had been provided to me by any therapists I was seeing. It was not until aged 7 and a half he was totally independantly toilet trained and he did not ask me those questions. I think Sensory Processing has allot to do with it. I feel for parents going through this issue with their child. I know I felt isolated when I was going through this issue with my son. I would like to share a few strategies that I used while toilet training my son, which you may find useful.

A corner mirror in the bathroom so your kiddo can visually see the state of his cleanliness. (So when the kiddo has finished wiping and says that he still feel unclean and perhaps wiping many more times than he has to. A problem because kiddo may irritate his bottom tissues through abrasive toilet paper, you may run out of loo paper and toilet drain becomes blocked.)

Reading favorite stories to your child while they are on the loo to make the experience of sitting on the loo more emotionally comforting.

Realizing that the kiddo may feel there is material still left on bottom because of Sensory Processing Disorder difficulties. So an explanation to the kiddo about what he is feeling or some cream may help. The kiddo may feel very frustrated by the whole loo process and not want to go at all.

When the kiddo says “Mum, wipe my Bum!”, Mum says “No, you do it! and the kiddo says “But I forgot how?” you can use laminated compix or photo’s in bathroom for bathroom routine.

Realize that the child could be getting Bum sweat, which possibly could be percieved as feeling like there is something remaing. And also when kiddo gets anxious the body can sweat.

Cartoons are also great instructional routines to set the bathroom routine in place.

Finally, I was right there with him, to help him, and I told him how proud I was of him and then when he looked at me with those beautiful eyes I just repeated the mantra over and over, I know you can do this, I trust you. And it did not work all the time for fully independant toileting experiance. But one step at a time is all you can do.

Toilet training your Autistic child can take a long time, longer than usual and two Autistic siblings can develop at different rates and toilet train at different times. I felt as though I had explained to my son more than 1000 times how to do it then I realized that by challenging the Sensory processing difficulty with the his own visual input may be helpful, and it was and we use it all the time. Hopefully this is helpful to some other parents.